Driver DUI Charges Switched In Fatal Denver Wreck

DENVER, CO – Denver prosecutors changed the determination of the driver at-fault in a May two-car accident that injured three people and killed a mother-of-three.

Jose Quinones, 26, was arrested and charged June 15 with six counts including vehicular homicide, DUI for the northeast-Denver crash on May 11 that killed Alma Yeni Vallejo, 31, and injured Quinones and two other women, the Denver County District Attorney's office said Wednesday.

Around 11:30 p.m. May 11, Karla Arellano was at the wheel of a silver Chevy Traverse SUV heading southbound on Tower Road when she tried to make a left turn onto 43rd Street, police affidavits say. Quinones, driving a red Jeep Liberty northbound on Tower Road, struck the right side of the Chevy, killing Vallejo and injuring Arellano and her sister-in-law. Quinones suffered broken bones, according to the police affidavit.

Obdulia "Duly" Arellano, 31, spent three months in a hospital after the accident. Her sister-in-law, Karla Arellano, was initially arrested and charged with vehicular homicide-DUI, not having a drivers license and failure to yield.

But charges against Karla Arellano were dropped on July 11 and lesser charges filed, said Ken Lane, communications director for the district attorney's office.

"The case involving those charges was dismissed upon request by our office, but we filed a new case the same day," Lane confirmed Wednesday.

After the accident, "my sister-in-law was taken from the hospital to Denver jail," Duly Arellano said. She wants to make sure the news of the reduced charges reached the public, she said.

At the hospital, Quinones, seriously injured initially refused to submit to a blood-alcohol test, police affidavits said. He showed signs of intoxication, and a blood draw was obtained, for which a judge issued a warrant the next day, police said.

Arellano told police she had consumed three Corona beers earlier in the evening. She consented to a blood draw, the police affidavit said.

Charges were reduced for Karla Arellano to misdemeanors of careless driving resulting in death, one count of careless driving resulting in injury and not having a driver's license, the district attorney's office said. She is scheduled to appear in court Sep. 18.

Duly Arellano remembered the passenger who died, Alma Vallejo, 31, as a mother of three girls who had been a dear friend since age nine when the two women grew up together in Aurora. The accident happened only a few blocks from all three women's homes, she said.

She doesn't remember the accident, in which she was the most-seriously injured, she said. "I had a broken femur, a shattered pelvis, my intestines were damaged," she said. "But I wish Alma could have survived and been here recovering with me."

Jose Quinones is scheduled to appear in court Sept. 18, the district attorney's office said.

Image via Denver District Attorney's office

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